From Forest Floor to Fashion: How Eco-printing Could Put Tempursari Village of Malang Regency on the Map

TEMPURSARI VILLAGE, MALANG REGENCY — In the quiet folds of East Java’s Malang Regency in Indonesia, far from the choking buzz of scooters and neon coffee shops of the city, there’s a village where the future might just be written in leaves, but it carries the promise of sustainable livelihood and creative empowerment for the village community.

Tempursari isn’t famous—yet.

Not like the famous Mt. Bromo or the cold city of Batu or the heritage village of Kajoetangan in the city of Malang. It doesn’t show up in travel brochures or on Instagram travel reels. But walk a little off the beaten path and into its cool, green underbrush, and you’ll find what marketers, designers, and conscious consumers have been seeking for years: raw materials, real stories, and a radical kind of sustainability that doesn’t need to be branded—it just is.

Here, surrounded by eucalyptus groves, guava and mango trees, and the rustling elegance of teak and rose leaves, a quiet revolution is taking root. It’s called eco-printing, and it may just be the most poetic way for a village to change its economic fortunes.

NOT JUST CRAFT—THIS IS CHEMISTRY

Tempursari village locals trying eco-printing

Let’s start with what eco-printing is not: it’s not tie-dye, not batik, and definitely not synthetic. There are no vats of chemical sludge or outsourced factory labor. This is what happens when art, science, and nature share a table. The technique is, at its essence, disarmingly simple. Take a piece of natural cloth—rayon, primisima cotton, or unbleached blacu. Choose your leaves carefully—jarak (castor) for bold outlines, jati (teak) for its fingerprint-like veins, kenikir (cosmos) for a wispy brushstroke look. Lay them across the fabric, bundle it tight, and either steam or boil. What happens next is part alchemy, part accident, and entirely beautiful. The natural tannins and pigments from the leaves seep into the fabric, leaving behind a ghostly impression—like nature’s own cyanotype.

But don’t let the rustic process fool you. This is high design territory. The results can go from earthy to ethereal—scarves, tunics, journals, handbags, even gallery-ready textile art. What’s more, no two pieces are alike. And in a world of algorithm-fed uniformity, that’s a luxury you can’t mass-produce.

A FOREST OF OPPORTUNITY

Tempursari doesn’t need to import potential—it’s been here all along. The village is practically a living dye garden, with daun mangga (mango leaves) lending olive hues, daun jambu (guava) giving rust-colored accents, and daun mawar (rose leaves) offering delicate linework. Even the daun lanang (Indian trumpet tree leaves) and daun ceri (cherry leaves)—unfamiliar to others—bring something special to the palette.

Tempursari village locals making pattern for eco-printing

But this isn’t just about biodiversity. It’s about economic ecology. When the people of Tempursari pick up eco-printing, they’re not just making pretty things. They’re creating a circular local economy, one where the inputs are gathered, processed, and sold within the community. It’s job creation without gentrification. It's a heritage without nostalgia. And it’s environmentally sound without needing a "greenwashed" label slapped on top.